Healthcare

The Key Worldwide has recently updated its capabilities and programs brochure that provides students and parents with an in-depth overview of the Key’s Complete College Program.

This service helps the student select the appropriate college with specific recommendations based on the individual’s academic and personal goals. The program works individually with students and their families to develop and implement a “game plan” complete with objectives and goals, and an understanding of how the results, if achieved, impact their ability to gain admission to the college of their choice.

The Key Worldwide has made available a brand new brochure that provides students and parents with an in-depth overview of the Key’s Complete College Program.

This service helps the student select the appropriate college with specific recommendations based on the individual’s academic and personal goals. The program works individually with students and their families to develop and implement a “game plan” complete with objectives and goals, and an understanding of how the results, if achieved, impact their ability to gain admission to the college of their choice.

A biometric identification system is, in its most basic sense, a more “personal” security system. The reason why I say personal is due to the fact that biometric security recognizes physiological characteristics of the user; these systems commonly, but not exclusively, use fingerprints, palm prints, DNA, hand geometry, iris and retina recognition, and facial recognition. However, all of these systems can be thwarted, in theory. A thief could get a mask of perfect proportion to the user or get fingerprints as well–you can even use a wet photocopy of a fingerprint to get through a fingerprint-scanning lock. Recently, at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, India, a group of scientists have developed a new–and supposedly impossible to foil–facial recognition biometric security system.

The group–Ayan Seal, Suranjan Ganguly, Debotosh Bhattacharjee, Mita Nasipuri, and Dipak Kr. Basu–wanted to solve the problems of the flawed biometric systems, as stated above. What could be as unique as your fingerprint, but nearly impossible to copy? According to the scientists: blood vessels. Each and every one of us has a unique pattern of intertwined veins, arteries, and capillaries under our skin. The face, in particular, is an area of the body with very thin skin and a very high density of blood vessels–the perfect choice for an ultra-high security biometric lock in the group’s opinion.

An image of the user is taken by a thermal imaging camera using an infrared scan, which will detect the blood vessels. This image is then taken from the camera and sent to a computer using a specially-designed algorithm to process every single vein, artery, and capillary in the user’s face. Using this alone, the system is said to be over 97% accurate–an incredibly high percentage considering current percent accuracy ratingsof facial recognition software can fall anywhere from 47% to 90% accurate depending on the image the user supplied to the computer. This team of scientists believes that this system alone will be impossible to foil because the replicators would have to create a blood vessel “mask” identical to that of the user.

Many also think that this new blood vessel-scanning system could be used alongside other forms of biometric security such as facial imaging, fingerprint scanning, and hand geometry to form a nearly 100% accurate biometric security system.

What if your memories could be downloaded, backed up, and implanted into your brain? According to CNN, scientists from MIT, University of South Carolina, and Wake Forest and other prestigious schools, are saying that major memory rejuvenation has been achieved on test mice and other specimen. Soon this technology will make its way into curing human memory and brain degeneration.

This is not as far fetched as it seems. For the past 15 years, doctors have been able to provide brain implants to treat neurological diseases like epilepsy and Parkinson’s. According to Rob Hampson, an associate professor of pharmacology and physiology, patients’ biggest critique and fears of these procedures are placing large, electrically charged pieces of hardware in their brain. Only about 80,000 people have had procedures for these bulky implants for deep brain stimulation in the 15 years they have been available. However, scientists now believe they can replicate the brain’s process of creating long-term memories and can condense the implants to a microchip.
Scientists, such as Ted Berger, a biomedical engineering professor at the University of Southern California, have targeted the hippocampus, which is key for converting short to long-term memories. Using high level math modeling based off of the hippocampus, the scientific team has been able to create a template for how memories are converted for majority of the brain. Berger claims that soon scientists will be able to record a memory being made in an undamaged part of the brain and then use the data to predict what a “downstream” damaged area should do. The chip would replaced the damaged section provide more normal brain function.

The ultimate goal of this technology is learning more and reversing degenerative memory diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Dementia and alleviate the fears many people have by making the procedure minimally invasive. However, these types of procedures have not been as effective on advanced stages of Dementia or Alzheimer’s where multiple areas of the brain are affected simultaneously.

However, the United Kingdom’s Alzheimer’s Society and others are still optimistic about the advancements. The U.S. military is excited to incorporate this type of technology with the many brain injuries soldiers face in combat. This type of technology could be available for volunteers within the next two years and can be used in hospitals as soon as five years from now. And who knows, soon people may even be able to store every event in their lives in something that could fit in the palm of their hand.

Scientists at the Swiss Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have created a prototype of a new blood test, one that doesn’t remove blood from the body. The implant contains five customizable sensors, making the applications of it range from monitoring thechronically ill to chemotherapy personalization. The device measures only a few cubic millimeters in size. It runs on 1/10 of a watt of power, which is supplied through the skin through a battery patch. The patch removes the need to operate every time the battery needs charging. The implant emits (safe) radio waves sending information to the patch for storage; the patch then sends the device to a cellphone via Bluetooth. This information is then sent to the patients doctor from the phone.

The implant’s diverse sensors have an extremely large range of possible tests. While this could be used to monitor blood sugar levels in a diabetic, the device can measure substances such as carboplatin – a drug used in chemotherapy to fight certain cancers. This ability would allow oncologists, who normally check how a patient is responding to a certain chemotherapy regimen every few weeks with a blood test, to be able to allows be checking up on their patients’ responses. This creates a far more personalized form of chemotherapy.

The research results from the EPFL on their implant will be presented today (March 20th) at Europe’s largest electronics conference and later published.